John Mackey

John Mackey (born August 15, 1953, in Houston, Texas) is best known as the co-founder of Whole Foods Market. He studied philosophy and religion at the University of Texas at Austin and Trinity University in the 1970s but never completed a degree. In 1978 he co-founded a small Austin natural-foods store called SaferWay with then-girlfriend Renee Lawson Hardy, borrowing $10,000 and raising $35,000 more. In 1980 that store merged with Clarksville Natural Grocery to become Whole Foods Market.

Mackey served as Whole Foods' CEO from its founding until his retirement in September 2022 — a 42- to 44-year tenure that grew the company from a single Austin store to roughly 540 stores across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, with annual sales exceeding $22 billion and more than 100,000 team members. Amazon acquired Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017. Along the way Mackey was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year (2003), received an honorary degree from Bentley College (2008), was recognized by Fortune among the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders," and was inducted into the World Retail Congress Hall of Fame (2022). He is also a co-founder of the Conscious Capitalism movement and author of bestsellers including *Conscious Capitalism* and *Conscious Leadership*.

After leaving Whole Foods, Mackey turned to preventive health. He co-founded Love.Life (incorporated as Healthy America LLC in 2020) alongside former Whole Foods co-CEO Walter Robb and former executive Betsy Foster. Love.Life combines nutritious food, medical care, and wellness therapies, and opened a 45,000-square-foot flagship health-and-wellness club in El Segundo, California, in 2024; the company had raised roughly $31 million and grew partly through acquisitions (Love Life Cafe, Mastering Diabetes, and Plant Based TeleHealth). Mackey serves on the boards of Conscious Capitalism, the Cato Institute, the Institute for Cultural Evolution, and Students for Liberty.

Mackey's investing is that of an active entrepreneur-angel rather than a full-time fund manager — he writes personal checks into a small number of companies, typically ones aligned with his values around food, health, and purpose-driven business.

• Invests as an individual angel, generally at seed/angel stage, with individual checks around $500K.
• Strong affinity for natural/organic and alternative-protein food (he backed cultivated-meat company UPSIDE Foods) and data/tech built by Austin founders (data.world).
• Prioritizes founders who share his Conscious Capitalism ethos — purpose, stakeholder orientation, and long-term "builder" mindset over quick flips.
• Distinguishes between two founder types: *"There's the startup entrepreneur, and then there's the builder entrepreneur."* He advises builders to be explicit with investors: *"If you are going to be a builder, you should be very clear with the investors that you bring in that you're not looking to sell the business."*
• Skeptical of misaligned venture capital, which he colorfully calls *"hitchhikers with credit cards"* that will *"take over the car…and…throw you on the side of the road"* if a company misses a ~seven-year exit timeline — a signal he values investor–founder alignment on vision and time horizon.